Exceptions to the protection norms to copyright: fair use and creative commons: By Alejandro del Valle Porres | Qil+4 Lawyers
Fair use and creative commons are exceptions to the protection norms to copyright. The latter is a new mode of sharing protected by copyright creations, a new way of honest use, or “fair use”. To explain this, it is important to note that fair uses are those limitations to copyright when in specific cases, the one who uses copyright protected material, does so in good faith for a non-commercial or non-exploitation purpose, leaving the moral copyright intact. When such a case occurs, it is not obligatory to pay royalties to the author. Accordingly, the creative commons or common creations is a new mode through which the creators of any work categorized and advertised as a work subject to such a mode, place the seal “CC” to identify it as such. This seal or imprint allows any person to be aware that the intent of the creator is to share their creation with third parties, that no payment of royalties is necessary and even can improve on it. Thus the term “common”, meaning the work can be created by many authors, for example, song lyrics the author did not compose music for. If the author categorizes it as “CC”, another artist could add music to it, another could make arrangements, and so on. What the creative commons mechanism intends to do is, contrary to the Anglo-Saxon copyright, is to make creations available to third party artists who do not have any interest in earning any profit from their work, but want to share it, so that other people can use it and get to know it (it could even be a way to make their work
known to others, to have more exposure, and eventually be able to charge once they have made a name for themselves in the market). This trend appeared because copyright has limited the use of works, since regulations that protect the copyright protect it since its creation. With “CC”, the authors themselves would be waiving those rights and sharing their work with the rest of the world, in case they do not have the intention or are interested in keeping that protection, but rather make their work available to third parties (provided the moral rights are respected).
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